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                 Gatto Matto

               Daily and Travel Thoughts

                  of a Chinese Woman

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I am Gatto Matto,
My Place is Shanghai,
Currently I am in HK


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Thursday, May 26, 2005
Nice flowers in Tuenmun Park

Nice flowers in Tuenmun ParkNice flowers in Tuenmun Park

Today, we get the keys for the new house and officially it means we own an apartment in HK... celebrations!!!!


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by gattomatto 4:20 PM                             (3) comments


Tuesday, May 24, 2005
My last two travels to ShenZhen

Well, some quick words about my last two visits to Shenzhen.
May 1st: The first time An accompanied me for the tour. Instead of the usual places of shopping mall, we decided to go to see the Lianhua Shan park ( Lotus mountain park). There was a big yard for skating. Lying on the grasses, we enjoyed watching the skates. Two were extraordinary. An old man was sitting on grass and let the wind to take one by one his tadpole skate, they were quite small to be taken up by the wind immediately. Guess what? There were 220 in total with the last a bigger one in green- their mom Frog. I liked his humility. xixi... The other was a skate of birds, much bigger size, with different colors and around 30 in total. I liked this, too.
May 14th: The weather was unbearably hot. This time I went through Huanggang checkpoint instead of Luohu. I contacted a university mate who works in Shenzhen, the only guy I know in ShenZhen apart my cousin. He was strange, keeping push me to make shopping in Shenzhen, because in Shenzhen everything is much cheaper than HK. Yeah, I know that, but we are not so close kind of friends and I don't like to make personal shopping with guys I am not so familiar with. Then he pushed again, so I said I might check something for my father since I plan to go back Shanghai in June. We went to a Department store but I didn't find anything really interesting. So We kept circling the Men's floor. At the end I was bored and suggested we just sat down somewhere for a little chat, since after university we have never met each other. Finally, he took me to a local snacks place. At least, I got some good food.
Apart this little meeting with Xie, I saw something really horrible on the streets. There were boys, around 10 to 13, using finger-thick iron thread to force their necks, and then asked for few coins for their performance. The one, even forced his own face to bloody red. I was really horrified. Never seen this kind of things before. It was too barbaric and ugly.
In HK, Shenzhen is very notorious for its stealing and robbing. I tried to tell myself to feel more Shenzhen before I make any comment about I like or dislike this city. But this has really made a bad mark about Shenzhen.
On the way back HK, I have been questioned by the customs official about my frequent entrance into HK. I answered that I am doing a project in HK. haha, it sounded a perfect answer for the official. No further question, I entered HK once again.

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by gattomatto 1:55 PM                             (0) comments


Saturday, May 14, 2005
05/04/2005~07/04/2005 My trip to yunnan- lugu lake part

Here I am back. Under the companion of Michael Buble’s songs, try to concentrate and write things down. “ Tell me quando, quando, quando…” I like this song ☺
D1: first of all, I got a very bad sleep over the whole night. Where our room locates, is exactly overhead the main road, and it is one of the main roads for people to get out from the bar area in the old town. And there were bunches of half-drunken or drunken people singing and passing through after midnight. It was really hard to ignore all the noises... Moreover, there was a friend of Molly, I don’t know why he didn’t try to find a lodging during the day, but after we all went to the bed he called Molly to help him to see if he can stay inside our hostel. But we got a strict rule there, after the midnight, every guest has to return and the girl in charge will locked the main door from inside. So that guy made knocks on the door and Molly even got up from the bed to help him. At the end, he still couldn’t enter and went away. Then I kept awake almost the whole night. To my surprise, after I checked with the rest of the guys it sounded they all, except Molly and I, had a good sleep.
Anyway, at this moment we got enough people to rent a car and go to Lugu Lake directly. On the road, Xiaopeng, that friend of Molly, negotiated with a minibus driver and after a good lunch we departed for Lugu Lake.
Molly said she has car sick so we left her for the seat beside the driver. But V and xiaopeng were not so gentlemen, they left me sandwiched between Sonny and Daniel. That was really uncomfortable as we had a very low chair and we even couldn’t put our heads on it.
It is more than 200Km from Lijiang to Lugu Lake and it took us around 8 hours to reach there. Road is typical mountain type, we get endless curves, left, right and left. After a while, I tried to take a nap but it was almost impossible, the road condition was so bad that I kept knocking on the ceiling of the minibus.
On the road, we took a little rest at Ninglang town, I went to a toilet, which should be described horrible. After some pieces of watermelon we went on. Finally around 8:00pm we arrived at Luoshui, being strongly criticized by many travel blogs. I had no intention to stay in Loshui(落水), instead I wanted to go to Lige (里格). Moreover, where the driver took us is a guesthouse declared they don’t have any electricity in the normal room (15 yuan per person) instead they have it for standard room (40 yuan per person). It sounded ridiculous: a way just to let people pay more. At the same time, I don’t see any possibility of a room from where I can have a lakeview. I got a bad feeling about what was going on so I took out my notes about the hostel in Lige, and I called about the costs (at Zaxi’s 10 yuan per bed with electricity; and we are waterfront) But there is still 17km away from Luoshui and Zaxi is going to charge us 40yuan for the pick-up service. The driver with us had made up his mind not to move his ass any more. So I got angry and I told the rests that I didn’t care what they wanted but I was going to Lige in any way.
Soon Zaxi arrived with his jeep. Sonny and Daniel decided to follow me as well as the rest of the group. Maybe, somehow my temper has terrified them. Then, the stupid driver agreed to go as well.
Finally, we arrived Lige. The first impression was nice because the houses are exactly in front of the lake. The only problem is it was too dark to see the water. Quickly we settled down, I took a room sharing with Molly. And we went down for dinner. Even Lige is very calm place but Zaxi’s bar is the most crowded one. To show the hospitality, Zaxi’s cousin started to offer us Guangdang wine (Guangdang is a sound, means the people who drinks this kind of wine, will be blackout suddenly, and Guangdong is the sound when they fall down). Then everybody started to drink, and more and more. Molly was a kind absolutely unable in drinking, so she blushed immediately. Up to some extent, I stopped drinking, as I knew I didn’t want to get drunk among a bunch of unknown people. But definitely others didn’t share the same idea with me. Molly and Sonny started to act strange, and they hugged together in front my camera. Then I left for bed and Molly wanted to leave with me.
Then it came another disturbing night. Firstly, Sonny was keeping knocking our door calling Molly out. After a while, Denial took him away. Then I thought it was Xiaopeng calling Molly’s name again. He kept patrolling outside our room up to very late.
Up to now, I suppose the readers might start to guess Molly is a super-sexy girl, but she is not at all. I might determine her as a kind of ugly type. So why people are acting so strange? One part I suppose it was alcohol, the other was because where we were.
Here I have to make some introduction about Lugu lake. It is so called Virgin lake in China, a place is not yet polluted by outside people (about this I have doubts). And is the only place in China people still having Matriarchal chan system. So women and men make their social activities by dancing together. Once a guy likes a woman, he might tickle her palm to show his feeling, and if the woman tickles back it means he can pay a visit to the woman’s house that night. So no marriage exists there. When a child is born he will be taken care by his birth mother and his uncles. His birth father will take care of his sisters’ kids.
So most of the people visiting there might get a feeling to find a counterpart of one night love.
Last thing to be mentioned: we had a night full of stars. Later Sonny told me he tried to sleep outside under the stars but was force to go back to the room when he was awake by the cold. My explanation about what he did: he was drunk.

D2: tour around the lake
I waked up by the strong sounds of the wind. It was quite early, around six something. I went out to see the water and it was beautiful. With the pinky lights of sunrise over the lake, it showed a peaceful and calm morning. I felt myself full of joys, like I can just sit in front of the water and do nothing.
After a while I decided to explore a little bit Lige by myself. It was absolutely quite and there were some smokes getting out from the house and rising above the lake. It was a pity as my digital camera is the type of showing where I arrived; it can’t take some artistic views. Luckily I got my eyes and a still impressive memory till now. On my way back, I got to know an old couple from Xi’an. They are very nice people.
Then everybody got up so we went for a hike around the lake. It was pleasant. Specially we got the companion of the big fluffy black dog from Zaxi’s, he is so sweet. He even waited us, when we were delayed from the main part of the hiking group.
Gradually, I became the one who makes decision for our group, which is opposite of my original idea. I hoped that someone did all his homework and was able to manage this temporary composed team, like all of them I met on my former trip to Sichuan. What I have to think about is to enjoy the beautiful scene in front of me. Apparently, the members of the current team are younger than me, except V. V, Sonny and Daniel are foreigners, who will be difficult to make any decision. Xiaopeng and Molly, they both seemed to be more interested in developing their personal relationship. So I am forced to take over. Then I negotiated for the boat rental and a local Mosuo (the local minority) lunch. Their ham is astonishing, not meat but only fats.
General speaking, the boat trip was really nice. Weather was pleasing; Sonny and Daniel were good at rowing the boat, thanks for kiwis’ capacity of water sports. Hehe
Since Zaxi got more than 30 guests for the day, all of us joined to have a feast of roasted lamb and pig. It was delicious; the only unsatisfying part was the quantity was too few.
Night we went to the local Bonfire party. I was disappointed due to a higher expectation.
Zaxi’s bar was much more crowed than the day before. There was a single girl from Qingdao drinking Guangdang wine with 4 local men. Before I got to know what happened to her, I went straight to bed.

D3: Back to lijiang
I made another early wakeup and the lake was pleasant as yesterday. The driver was eager to leave as he said he had to be in Lijiang before noon. But V and Xiaopeng got up quite late. Then he changed his idea, requiring a breakfast before our departure.
I really don’t like this driver. He keeps complaining and don’t allow us to stop to take any photo (normally it is the main reason we go for renting a car instead of taking bus) I don’t understand after he agreed the deal why he has to show us an unhappy face.
The road for going back was same kind of boring. We managed to stop only once to have a nice photo of the curving mountains roads. And we got a very expensive Jinshajiang fish for our lunch. Sonny said he heard it cost 10 yuan per half kg, but when I made a double check it became 90 yuan per half kg. The fish is already prepared for cooking, so we had to pay. Typical tricks you have to afford in China.
Finally, we went back to the same room of the same hostel with our same unchanged roommate-- that Japanese guy.
After a coffee with overview looking of the Lijiang we headed Sakura for dinner.
Got enough idea about the quantity, I was able to choose the right portion for three of us: Sonny, Daniel and I. Suddenly Sonny started to talk with a girl two tables next to us, she was alone. After his 2-time invitation ended in vain, I asked her to join us for a dinner. Maybe feeling safer as I am a girl too, she joined us. ( I guess I have a very honest face, xixi) Lele is Xiamen airline stewardess, on her 3-day short vacation in Lijiang. Her plan is going to Lugu Lake tomorrow and Sonny decided to accompany her to go there. I was a little bit shocked as we were just back, meanwhile I appreciated his way cause few Chinese men will do it for a girl just knew less than one hour.
Then I got the message from Tangtang (she is a Kunming girl I met in my last trip from Zhongdian to Kunming, a very nice lady), she was in Lijiang too and we decided to catch up for a drink. So our gang expanded to five and we went to a less-noisy bar for a drink and chat. Tangtang has a beautiful personality and I guessed all the others were fond of her immediately just like what happened to me. Since Daniel can’t understand Chinese, Tangtang can’t speak English. So she used her body language, which was super-vivid. ☺ Things about her will be written down in my Sichuan part (which I haven’t finished yet, I am really too lazy…)
Since Sonny seriously decided to go with lele for the trip of Lugu lake, I asked Daniel if he minded to go with me for the Tiger Leap Gorge since I haven’t found proper partner for the trip. He agreed.
So it goes on the Tiger Leap Gorge part…

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by gattomatto 10:34 AM                             (0) comments